Nope, No Terrorism...

Damn...

I am freezing my ass off. Thank God for Global Warming. It's 11:30am, and it is 63 degrees outside. In August.I was about ready to ask for a lap blanket to be brought to me, and the wife just went over and turned my window fan off. Now I'm just cold. I have my arms under my shirt and am typing with just my fingers sticking out.

The wife woke up at 8:35am, and remembered Nat had a doctor's appointment at 9am, across town. So I woke from my slumber, or rather, was awoken, brutally, to her cracking the whip over Nat, and Johnny walking around bleary-eyed, wondering what's up.

They made the appointment on time.

The wife gets home, and her sister in law calls to tell her her cousin just died of heart failure. He had been born with a lot of congenital defects, like Johnny, and had been through lots of surgeries. Somewhere along the line, he developed a powerful drug habit, and destroyed his heart muscle. Today, he died. He was the same age as the wife.

Lord knows my family can be fucked up, but the wife's family has the clearest evidence of having a Family Curse I think I've ever seen. I like her family better than mine, for the most part, but dang if for such good, sweet people, they don't have the most terrible luck I've ever seen.

It's getting so that I hate to get a phone call from them. The 'Tragedy of the Week'.

I have finally taught Johnny the Holy and Intimate Secrets of the Remote Control. Yer a man now, son. You can change channels for a boy, or you can teach him to surf for life.Plus, I don't have to get up anymore when the wife is gone.

Man, it is after noon, now (I keep getting interrupted by people wanting to 'talk') and it is still overcast and 66 degrees. I sure do love Oregon.

I'm Not Sure...

You May Have Noticed...

I took down my (and the kids') Amazon wish lists. I know she does it because she loves and cares, but LL has been busting her ass for everybody, and she deals with real charitable needs for many others, and I no longer care to add to her stress.

If you want me to have something, hit my tip jar(s) and shoot me an email and tell me what to order. Or just give me money. Dammit. Or not.

It was fun for awhile, and then became a pain in the ass. Thanks all, for all you've done, and especially LL. Go hit her donation buttons and help out with some far more worthy causes.

Dealing With Teh Crazy...

Anyone who has ever been on the internet has at some point encountered a crazy person. I'm not talking 'quirky', here, or 'eccentric', but full-on batshit crazy.

I have had several jobs where I have encountered crazy people as part of earning my daily bread, and in one case, I worked at a loony storage facility, taking them from the ambulance, drugged to the gills in a strait jacket, to their ultimate discharge.

I know crazy.

To be sure, there are degrees of crazy, but if you've got a little touch of it, there is a big ole well of crazy in there that you haven't tapped yet. The 'right' circumstances just haven't occurred yet.

The wife, before she became the wife, began to come to my work and bring me dinner, and we'd study together. There was never a time when she didn't leave stunned and slack-jawed at having glimpsed what can hide behind the face of humanity. And she was amazed at how casually I dealt with it.

I just explained to her that none of it mattered. These are permanently broken people. Even on psych meds, the are still lunatics, just lunatics who are loaded. Psych meds never cured anybody, they just mask the symptoms better. And if they were erroneously prescribed, they can make you crazy.

I only ever encountered one type of nut for whom there was any hope. These people had experienced a breakdown of some sort, either due to grief, or because of a terrible betrayal in a relationship. As I identified these types of people, I would nurture them. Bring them their meals in their rooms. Protect them from the other nuts. And eventually, they would come back to themselves, and go back out into society to take their place again.

I have threatened, well, promised to kill nuts before. "Listen, I know that you've got everybody afraid of you here, and that you like to hurt people, too. I just want you to know that if you start another fight with staff here, or another patient, I am going to kill you. I know how, and I really, really want to. And you know what? You made it easy. You're already certifiably nuts. It says so in your chart. So jump bad any time you want to, or feel depressed and no longer want to live, and I'll take care of things. As a matter of fact, why don't you attack me now? C'mon, pussy. I'm waiting..."

I never had one take me up on it. And they quit getting themselves 5150'd on hamburger night, too.

The nuts you meet in cyberspace are a bit more difficult to deal with. More, persistent, shall we say. Those you just ignore, and shun, and delete their crap as necessary. You'd be amazed by the emails I've gotten from genuine Tall Dog bloggers, warning me about this or that person currently commenting in my comments. And forwarding me emails or comment threads where this person was going bananas. Eye opening.

I have developed a reputation for integrity, here, and I want to hold on to it. You wouldn't believe how many (and who of) naked pictures of big time female bloggers I had. I say 'had', because I got to feeling guilty about the wife finding them after I'm dead, so I deleted all of them. And the mushy emails. Sorry, ladies.

And I see some of you ladies have gotten yourselves involved in a low-level blog catfight out there. With a self-admitted crazy woman, whose personality will change 2-3 times within the same blog post!

There is no profit in that. Stop it. Cut it out. Desist. At least quit dragging my name into it. That's just dumb. No, anytime you show a person like that any other part of you than your back, you are only throwing gas on the flame.I must confess to some irritation about this, me being an innocent bystander an all, but the day I get bent out of shape by what someone says about me (or mine) on a blog is the day I'll hang it up.

Oh, I'll get mad, but I will walk away and shun them. I might take the odd pot shot here and there, later, but it will be of such an anonymous nature that only the few 'in the know' will get the joke. And I will never ever ever clutter up their comments with my nonsense. I still never cease to be amazed by the idiots who feel a need to pop in here occasionally and tell me how much they hate me. And then go to other blogs and expound on how much they hate me.

Hey, Game-Makers!

Here's a game I'd like to see: Crusader Knights.

At the core of the story would be some summoned Templars, who never got to finish a quest. You'd have armored knights, and armored steeds, and all kinds of Baphometic goodness going on. Make it primarily 1st person, but be able to pull up and watch/direct the battle from above.

And slaughter ragheads in great bloody heaps.

Have them meet up with (and often rescue) Coalition Forces, and serve as a units shock troops, going on ahead and breaking the enemy's back.

Go for an NC-17 rating, and then tell the establishment to fuck off, and market it like Running With Scissors marketed 'Postal'.

Have the knights develop over time working with Coalition Forces the ability to use modern weapons. Can you see a knight firing rwo RPG's at one time? One in each hand? And then gesturing to his undead squire to hand him two .50 cal BMG's and then wading into the enemy's position, firing them like pistols?

I shiver.

Just make it as offensive to Muslims as possible. Even little old ladies would want to play it.

Exposure To Stupidity...

...while not always fatal, is exhausting. Enervating. I cheerfully bait the Flying Monkeys, and they fall for it every time, but, my goodness, the paucity of intellect and the obsession with everyone's potty parts...I guess it figures, since their Fearful Leader is a gynecologist. Shaking his hand at a rally is likely as close as any of them will ever get to a pussy.

Thwapping them is like kicking puppies, only not nearly as much fun. And when they come flapping in, oh dear, let the sloganeering begin. It's like being surrounded by Hare Krishnas in an airport.

Still, I'm gonna keep doing it. I can't help myself. It's like running the electric can opener in the kitchen, just to make the cat run in.

I do think that I might begin snipping the massive missives they post to prove that Ron Paul walks on water and craps gold nuggets. Ugh, I gave up on reading their pap. They make Scientologists look normal.

You've gotta work hard to make me look at Tom Cruise and say "Huh...maybe he's not so bad..."

There Is No Such Thing As 'Radical Islam'...

There are just Muslims who aren't doing it right.

Any so-called -'moderate Muslims' are just a tiny and distinct minority that idiots like Bush hold up to bolster their lies to the American people. And even Bush can't get it right, because every Imam he goes to hang with in the White House, or that he has deliver a prayer somewhere, turns out to have some sort of connection to terror somewhere.

If you convert to Islam, and follow the instructions in the manual (the Unholy Koran) then you, too, will become a budding terrorist.

I Love Dog-Fighting...

And chicken-fighting, too. I have always wanted to see a bear-baiting.

I wouldn't recognize Michael Vick if I met him on the street, but I wish him well in his tribulations with a stupid law. Especially as those who are bedeviling him are sitting down to breaded veal cutlets and foie gras for dinner tonight. Fucking hypocrites.

Ted Turner owns herds of cattle that will be slaughtered in the thousands (and I'm perfectly fine with that, too) yet he will pontificate on Vick's 'cruelty'. Cruelty, schmuelty.

And don't think for a minute that I feel defensive about this. Animal fighting is a blast, and the breeders love their charges as much as you love your little Fido or Fluffy. They know their creatures have a limited lifetime on this earth, and they choose to let them go out in a blaze of fighting glory, rather than moping around with hip dysplasia and failed kidneys, to die on a vet's table with a cold needle in their vein.

Ask yourself this: is this dog/chicken the trainer's personal property? Is it 'cruelty' to let them do what they will do, anyway?

Apparently these idiots who make these fucking stupid laws have never been to a farm. Roosters kill other roosters and hens all the time. They'll kill your kid if they can get to them.

Pit bulls? Don't get me started.

But boxing, and UFC are okay though, right? Beating a man's face in so that his trainer has to cut his eyelid just so he can see, and then sending him back out to fight is not cruelty, right?

Bullshit. Bloodsport, baby. Humanity loves it, and it will be with us until the end.

I Still Haven't Figured Out...

...what I'm gonna do with this blog yet. I was just gonna shut down, but I realized how much my little family vignette's mean to me. I mean, years later, you look at a photo you took, and you realize you have no idea why you took it, where it was, or how old the kid was. Here, I have a dated entry, and a moment preserved in Amber that I can go back and relive. And maybe one day, the kids, grown, could come back and meet themselves.

So, there's that.

Other than that, I've pretty much written everything, said everything, and I find myself repeating myself, and that just won't do. And I don't want to turn into some sort of blog where some old queen attacks his betters because of delusions of superiority, or blithers on about his gardening.

In short, it has stopped being fun. There is no joy in Bloggville.

I've picked up some money and loot (including this PC) over the years, and I'd like to think I've paid it all back. In spades. But the Creation Engine seems to be grinding to a halt. I made a decision to not share my fiction anymore, and also, to not write about my personal medical problems anymore, either. Boring, downer stuff. To both of us. Plus, I hate whining, and don't hang out where it is being done. So I was horrified to find myself doing it.

I can still write, I just don't wanna. Nothing grabs me and pulls me to the keyboard to pour out words, anymore. I don't think I'm burnt out, I just don't care. And then I hear the same people who praise me praising others (Rachel Lucas comes to mind...ugh) for being such great writers, and I despair.

Any reasonably educated person can squeeze out a blog post, and if they're passionate about the subject, it will show. Now, ask them to tell a story where the teddy bears come to life at night, and begin to attack the sleeping child, who is defended by a phalanx of Barbies who rip the stuffing out of them with their sharp Barbie hands and Barbie Ninja skills, and the morning sun rises to show us a little girl, sitting up in bed, in wonder at all of the swirling fuzz in the beams of sunlight. "Mommy! It's snowing in my room!"

No, I think I'm done for. Just gonna crawl back under the porch here, in the shade, and dream about chasing rabbits...

70's Decadence...

If you weren't a young man or woman of legal drinking age in the 70's, you missed out. The Tubes used to come to my hometown and play in the clubs, honing their music, and trying out songs for their next act and/or album. Heady times.

They saved their schtick for their shows in San Francisco and other big venues, but they never skimped on the music. You'd sit there (or stand...quite often, it was standing room only) and the music would hit you and crash over you like a giant sneaker wave, and sweep you away to somewhere else.

All the big bands played my town, all the time (okay, Chico, California). I got in a big brawl while Pablo Cruise played, one night.

Foreigner, Black Sabbath...ahhhh, those were the days. I punched the first lead singer of Journey right the fuck off the porch of this house we were all partying at after their gig for hitting on my girlfriend in front of me. Asshole.

If You've A Messed Up Little Kid...

I've been trying to think of developmental milestones for Johnny, and what initiated them. He was (and kinda still is) so fragile that we were afraid of trying new things for fear of breaking him, so our discoveries tended to come as happy accidents.

He spent the first few years of his life flat on his back, either because his heart was bad, or while recovering from surgeries. So he tended to have 'noodle neck', and to tire easily trying to hold his big melon head upright.

Well, the wife took him to visit her parents, who lived on the same property as her brother and sister in law in the mountains. The wife badly needed some R&R, and wanted the family to meet Johnny, so she went, and I stayed behind and worked.

A few days into the visit, the wife calls, all out of breath, and I thought something bad had happened. Quite the opposite. Her SIL had dug out one of these Fischer Price bouncer walker thingies, the kind where there is a tray practically all around the thing the child can lean on, with colorful activity toys of various sorts attached to it. What was oddest about the contraption, was that there were no wheels, just a big, round concave disk the kid could brace himself in (while sitting in the padded sling seat) and there were pegs that kept it from completely rolling over in any direction.

The wife was all out of breath and amazed, because John was already showing signs of physical improvement; being able to hold his head up, and beginning to show abdominal strength. She believed that he was well on the way to being able to learn to walk, and by golly, eventually he did, based on the contributions of this walker (bouncer?) alone.

And I'll never forget his Winnie The Pooh mobile we had hanging over his crib since he was born. It had all the characters, and they were plush Beanie Babies. He coveted them something fierce, but could never quite master the skill of standing up to reach them. Clamped to his headboard, they stayed tantalizingly just out of his reach.

When they came home, John would happily spend hours in his new bouncer, scooting around the kitchen floor after the wife, developing strength, and skills. One day, after his nap, I noticed him struggling to stand up in his crib. I rushed and got the wife, and we, hidden, watched as he worked and worked, and grunted and gasped, until finally, he stood there swaying, the master of all he surveyed.

And then he began snatching at his mobile in earnest. This was a boy with a mission. And his mission was Eeyore. He batted and batted at it until Eeyore came within reach, and then, with his still gauzed from surgery hands, he stepped away from the crib rail, placed both mitts around Eeyore, and fell backwards, snapping the line that held Eeyore to the mobile, and immediately began gumming and gnawing his prize with great savagery and contentment.

I was able to make it across the room and catch the falling mobile (he had loosened) before it cracked him in the head, and the wife and I stood by his crib and praised and praised him, and he smiled his crook-faced little smile, hugged Eeyore to his chest and gabbled, then went back to the serious business of gnawing on him.

Eeyore's still around, somewhere, in a drawer or a box. I have to admonish John to not run on the stairs. John is still a work in progress, and we have miles to go before we sleep, but I thank God for the nine years he has gifted this boy to us so far.

Now, If I can just get Nat to stop body-checking him into a heap. Hey, that's not slapping, right?

'Plug In' Cars...

Has anyone done any research into how hard it hits your electric bill to buy one of these electric cars and charge it up at home?

I had a friend who bought his kid an electric riding jeep for Christmas from Toys-R-Us, and by February it was in a yard sale. He told me that when he plugged it in to charge, the lights in the house would dim, and his electric meter would spin like a CD player. I forget what he said it did to his bill, but it was substantial enough damage that it stunned me.

Getting Even...

I hear parents whining about how their kids embarrass them in public, and I just have to chuckle sardonically. I don't get mad, I get even.

Wanna throw yourself in a screaming heap in the middle of the supermarket? Fine. "Who wants this kid? I think it's broken!" you shout, and walk away. Just walk away. Saunter off, and then hide behind an end-cap, and peep on em. Pretty soon, they sit up and look around, and notice the bosom of their family is gone. Then some obliging do-gooder (read: 'stranger') will come along and try to 'help' them, and when your spawn sees some goggle-eyed cat-lady looming over them, well, let the backwards crab-walking begin.

Bonus. The kid will never do that again, and you got to outrage a busybody.

Kid pitches a fit in a restaraunt? Fine. Everybody all around is already disturbed by it, so I pick them up, seat them on my arm facing out, and introduce him/her to everybody."See? This is the kid who's making all the noise...sorry folks..." and suddenly your child sees all eyes are upon them.

Staring. Kids are pointing and giggling. Some other parents inevitably get with the program, and give with the lowered brow and the shaming finger wag. I love that. Watch your kids face...worst case of stage fright you'll ever see. They won't do it again.

Revenge is a dish best served aged. For all of the frustration your kids put you through, it is great, years later when they are teens and out with peers, to come out of the restaurant bathroom with a paper toilet seat cover on your head and in your best 'Goofy as if he was from Texas' accent shout "Hey, kids, look! They're given away free cowboy hats in there!"

Put your thumbs in your armpits and do the chicken walk while you're at it. Bonus points if you have wet the end of a long strip of toilet paper and stuck it to your heel and are trailing about twenty feet of it.

Wanna act the fool with me in the park, little fella? Well, you better hope there's not a pond or a pool, cuz I will surely chuck your ass into it. Wanna pitch a fit on the front lawn when I tell you to come inside for dinner? Fine, but I bought those clothes yer wearin, and they're comin with me. Peel em like a shrimp, then rush in and lock the front door.

Let the door pounding and begging and bargaining begin.

Do any of you have any wonderful memories from your early childhood that still stand out, even though you can't remember your teacher's names or classmates faces?

The Half Hour News Hour...

What a great show last night. The wife and I laughed out loud several times. The interview with the three 'atheist writers' was priceless.

Dennis Miller can pack in more coherent genius in under two minutes than John Stewart and Bill Maher and that Colbert fruit can attempt to do all week. Plus, if you watch any of those turds, you're an idiot already, and beyond help.

I love the chemistry between the players in this show, and how they manage to pack in an hours worth of show into a half an hour.

A Few Weird Things...

I hate basketball, but the kids like sports, so I used to turn it on for them. At first they were excited. Action sports to them is like throwing a ball of string on the floor for the cat.Then, I noticed them losing interest, and going off and doing other things.

The next thing I noted was them asking me to change cartoons when one with a black or Mexican family came on. I think we see where this is going. And I think that is why BET exists, and Will & Grace. People like to see their own selves reflected back to them. 'The Jeffersons' doesn't count, nor does 'Good Times'. A lot of white people watched those shows, and that's kind of sad when you think about it. Because they were direct descendants of 'Amos & Andy', and white people just love to see those funny negroes clownin for em.

And despite what you may think about me, I have never modeled racist behavior to Nat and Johnny. I don't remember whether I did model it for my first litter, but whatever, it didn't take. They even have Muslim friends (God help us) and my second oldest is dating a black chick. A fact so monumental that I neglected to mention it until it popped into my head for this post.

Another weird thing is that, last night at bedtime, I was in obvious discomfort and agony. The wife, knowing (or thinking she knows) how I feel about certain things, approached me hesitantly with a small square of cloth in her hands, about 4"x6". And she just started talking in spite of me, and herself: she said her prayer and healing group had prayed to God to put his healing power into this cloth and that I should sleep with it tonight (last night).

Just try to get it away from me now. Try...

The pain just washed away. Call it whatever you want, but I made it through to 9:30 this morning without and pain medicines or unguents, from a barely able to stand standing start. And I was able to take a shower for the first time in two days. Yes, Nattie told me last night I stink. Actually, her exact words were "Pee-Yew, who farted? That's nasty!"

So the shower hit a certain problem area on my body, and the pain began to flare up as bad as before. I barely made it out of the shower, staggered into my bedroom, found the cloth, put it on the area and prayed for relief, and it was like a nice jolt of morphine. Instantly.

Praise the Lord!

Say, you wanna freak your kids out? Or an adult with a heart condition? Cool, then get yourself a small (empty) tin box, Altoids, or whatever. Then Google a picture of a fierce-looking rattlesnake, size it to fit the top of the box, and then glue or whatever it on. If you can, try to add a label that says 'Rattlesnake Eggs!'.

Then get yourself a 1" (or so) steel keyring. Just the ring, they're like a quarter at the hardware store. Then tie two stout rubber bands to the ring opposite each other, then stretch them under the bottom of the tin box and tie their other ends to each other. You may want to dent the box some where the lid closes on the bands, so it doesn't cut them.

Then wind the ring up as tight as you can, and close your trap very carefully. And hold it, as you don't want it going off prematurely.

Now, approach your victims very carefully, with a 'look what I got' game-face on. Get them gathered around, and explain to them that you got some rattlesnake eggs, and ask if they want to see them. Even if they say yes right away, explain to them that a few may have hatched already, but you 'don't think there's anything to worry about'.

Then, when they get in close enough ('the eggs are really small, and hard to see')...

Open the box.

With any luck, you'll be rewarded with that 'fresh urine smell' that every trickster craves. And personally, I think that whole 'swallowing your tongue' business is just a bunch of crap.

Prayer Request...

Not Quite Dead Yet...

...just feeling like it and wishing I was.

Miserable day. Slept fitfully from midnight to 12:30 this afternoon. Haven't gone downstairs once. If I had known I was gonna live this long, and feel this bad when I got there, I'da taken a heck of a lot more risks than I did already.

Sorry about all teh boring.

I feel like I've been in one of those great barroom brawls of yore, where everybody gets their licks in, but I prevailed, and 'acting cool', excuse myself, and on the way to the car, I lean over and puke into the ornamental shrubbery, then drive gingerly home, slowing as I go over known bumps, get home, hold my head upright in case anyone is looking as I walk into the house, then go into the bathroom and sit on the edge of the tub and whimper for a bit as I assess the damage.

Handfuls of menthol shaving cream are good for body bruises, by the way. Soothing. Then rinse my knuckles in the sink, and pick out a piece of someone else's tooth and hear it chitter down the side of the sink and swirl down the drain. Then rinse knuckles in cold water til the blood stops, and pour hydrogen peroxide over them, pat dry, and slap on a couple of butterflies.

Call in sick to work, chase five Extra Strength Excedrin with a beer, and settle in on the couch to see if you made the local news. Good times...

Thanks, Donater(s?)!

I would like to (ahem!) point out that I also have Season Two of 'Dead Like Me' on my wish list as well. Ahem.

It always amuses/amazes me what my lovely readers pick to buy me. My wish list is eclectic, to be sure, and I never know what I'm gonna get. I don't shill for Amazon, but I'd like to think that my readers have bought things for themselves off my list, too, and thus in some way improved their lives, based on my wishes and recommendations.

Why I Post...

If crazed assholes can take Protein Wisdom out, they can take any one of us bloggers out. It all spills out in the comments, and the links provided are fascinating. In a perfect world this 'woman' would be put down like a rabid dog.

This Is Just...

One Evening, Long And Long Ago...

I was driving down the mountain with my girlfriend, who would one happy day become my ex-wife. Well, we were 'shacking up' at the time, something that was still a fairly big deal in the early 70's. It was evening, and the night had turned black and come down with a case of stars (I stole that from Zelazny, I love it) though the sun still simmered and grouched on the other side of the far range of coastal mountains.

Don't get the idea that I was on some scary mountain road. No, it had been built over a stagecoach/wagon trail, and folks as what use conveyances with wooden wheels tend to keep their paths as straight as possible, so the ride downhill for me was like being on an asphalt water-slide

I came up to a place in the road where to my right was a posh, canyon-side restaurant that I never went to, for one reason or the other, and a luxury car full of old people full of good steak and cocktails decided it was their turn to enter the roadway and shot out across the right of way of this ratty looking Dodge panel van that was in front of me and the van T-Boned them good and proper.

I watched the vans ass end rise up in the air, then slam back down. I watched the Lincoln slide sideways and spin back facing the direction it had come from. I feathered my brakes and came to a stop about twenty feet behind the van. I told the chick to sit tight, and, chock full of recently learned first aid knowledge, I exited my '64 Chevy Impala SS and ran up to the van.

Its front end looked like a beer can that had met a frat boys forehead. The windshield was shattered. The engine, mounted under a cowling in the front end, between the two front seats, was running. And I could see gasoline pooling from the ruptured tank in the back, and beginning to flow in runnels inexorably towards the front of the van.

I start talking to the guy, as I reach in to turn his van off. My fingers find the ignition switch, and there is no key there. What the fuck? I note that the poor fellow is trapped under his steering wheel, which has crushed in and down, across his upper thighs and balls, and he is obviously in agony.

"How do you turn this fucking thing off?" I yell at him, and he vomits a stream of alcohol smelling puke down on the floorboard between his feet. I see he is a poor communicator. I repeat my shout-out, and he gestures weakly at the cowling, which I note is off (tilted back to the rear) and he points at a green wire that he obviously uses to hotwire the van, and it is dangling out of my reach, and sparking like a Fourth of July sparkler every time it hits the metal of the cowling.

Just great.

I've got to pull one of the battery cables off to stop the engine, and both front doors are jammed shut forever. And I'll be damed if I'm gonna try to get in through the back with gas heading up to the engine. And those sparks.

What to do...

I spun away from him and jumped up on his front bumper, and I see that the windshield has come loose in a spot, so I force both of my hands under the gasket, and rip that thing away, and give it an overhand toss the fuck away from me. I lean in, and sure enough, one of his battery connections is loose... the 'off switch', so I yank that bastard off, and the engine dies, and then begins to sputter, and to backfire.

'Fire' being the operative word here, I believe.

So, I reach in and begin feeling up his nuts. What I'm looking for is any bleeding, that may erupt like a fountain should I disengage him from the steering wheel. No blood. So, I grab the top of the steering wheel, put my back into it, and bend that sucker completely off him. Grateful for the release from the pressure, he vomits again. I damn near get a contact high from his puke-fumes.

I grabbed his shirt under both arms, and muscled him out through the front window. There are people I would be perfectly happy seeing burn to death, but tonight wasn't his night.I drug him to what I considered a safe place, and jogged back to my car. I could hear sirens off in the distance... the wait-staff at the restaurant must have called them. There were no cell phones in those days.

While I had been busy, traffic had backed up in both directions. Disgusted, I got in my Chevy and spun it around, and we went back up the hill.

Sigh...

You scored as Fallen Angel, You my friend are a Fallen Angel! You were amongst the closest to God, yet love led you down a path of self-destruction. You find yourself crying a lot, because of the pains of this world. Yes it is very crewl, yet you know there isn't a thing you can do about it. Follow your heart and you will find some of your former happiness.

Ron Paul: Serial Duck Molester...

Extreme Heat Warning...

Supposedly between 105 and 110. I know my Arizona and New Messican readers are sniggering in derision... fuck you guys if you don't have the sense to move.

We have five fans going, right now, and the house is buttoned up like a sub. The electronic thermometer beside me reads 81, though it is 99 outside right now. I have a small fan blowing on me, and I'm comfy. We bought several bags of ice last night, and we pull one out of the big ice chest every so often (when the other one melts) and put it in in a turkey pan behind the big box fan on the kitchen table. Drops the temp noticeably.

I am a polar bear. I hate the heat. Usually, Oregon cooperates. Cool temperatures and rain are forecast for next week. But today, we suffer. The wife grunted audibly when she opened the front door to go do errands a bit ago. The heat tackled her like a linebacker. A linebacker on fire!

I wish I could afford to buy one of those surplus underground missile silo complexes. I'd move in, and never come out again.

Wherein Nat Gets Smacked In The Mouth...

...hard.

Hey, I didn't do it. I heard Nat out on the stairwell, digging her grave with her mouth, and then I heard the wife make 'the noise', and then POP! And then another quick POP!

I had told Nat to not straddle Johnny as she went up and down the stairs. He was sitting on a lower step, running his bulldozer around on the upstairs landing, and Nat figured acrobatics were in order. I told her not to ever do it again, so she waited until I went in my room, and did it again, twice, and then lied about it to the wife who had seen her do it. Twice.

Pow!

We do not lie here in Bane Manor. Swift retribution to the offending orifice occurs like a lightning strike.

Johnny taunted her as she sat crying on her bed. "Youth a liar..." squall... "...liar liar liar" ...squall, then "Johnny, I just got smacked really hard on the mouth!" (sobbing)

So, How's The Wife And Kids?

Well, just fine, and thanks for asking.

Nat lost two teeth last night. The little ones on either side of her two upper front 'bunny teeth'. She was very brave, which was easy since they were both flapping like loose shingles in a stiff breeze. She came rushing up to me this morning, grinning her snaggly grin, and exulted "The Tooth Fairy brought me TEN quarters!"

I have become a ghost in my own house. I've been feeling so bad, I have mostly withdrawn from life, and the wife has been very good at maintaining normalcy for her and the kids. She bought them their first real 'big kid' pool the other day, and it has been hot enough that the kids have lived in it most of the afternoon splashing like otters.

Yesterday, Johnny put on his suit over his underwear, and at some point, decided it was decidedly uncomfortable, so he just stood up in the pool and shucked it all off. Buck-ass naked. Nat and the wife were scandalized, of course, and I could hear the hen-pecking all the way inside the house. Hey, sometimes a guy just has to get naked.

Nat thinks her nouveau riche status is going to get her noticed by Richie Rich. She is crushin on Richie Rich. I bought her a comic of him a while back, and she pores over it on a regular basis. Daddy's Little Golddigger.

Well, it's supposed to hit the mid to upper hundreds here tomorrow and Wednesday, so we'll all be laying around like somnolent lizards.

This not posting thing, or only posting haphazardly...hey, I'm kinda enjoying it. I was too locked in to the fantasy that this is some sort of job, forgetting that a job is something you get paid for. Yeah, it is my pleasure, too, but c'mon, I was posting like a madman. Ridiculous.

Hey, Fat Chicks!

Pervasive Myths...

There are almost too many to count, but I'll examine one myth I have propagated myself because it has suited my agenda to do so:

"An armed society is a polite society..."

R.A. Heinlein

What an idealistic crock of shit. One of the most mannered and civilized and well-armed (and I mean personal weapons) societies there has ever been had to come up with the Code Duello to manage the behavior of men who were slaughtering each other in the thousands over real or imagined slights.

Too many people live their lives in a dreamland of what they wish it could be, or a fantasy of what it once was, rather than how it really is. I heard two people at 3am the other morning screeching to four cops and a German Shepherd about their 'rights'.

Guess what...

A lot of heartache could be prevented if people would just open their eyes, look around, see the way things really are, accept it, and plan accordingly.

There are no more windmills...

Update:

This reality check brought to you by Al. 'We The People'? You and whose people, Al?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation...

I did something today I haven't done in a long time...

I turned my computer off.

6,500 posts or so is enough, don't you think? Of course, I used as my main excuse the fact that my wireless mouse is fucking up bad and annoying me to no end. And then I went to bed and slept til now, and pretty soon, I'm going back to bed to sleep til tomorrow this time, even if I need drugs to do it.

I'm like an old dog, going under the porch to die. I know something's wrong, I don't know what it is, so I'll just lay here in the cool dirt until it passes, or I wake up as a puppy again.

Don't cry for me, Argentina.

Is this my Swan Song? Heck, I dunno. Maybe. But as of this very minute, I do not see the point in ever typing so much as another syllable after I turn the box off tonight.

Oh, Spacebunny, the baby is coming along just fine. And thanks for the you know what.

Anyway, I have no idea if this is goodbye, or see you later. I haven't been back to Rob's blog since he kicked it. It is interesting to think of this blog as a directionless asteroid of words, spinning purposelessly through the void, visited by the occasional explorer.

What A Day...

If I hadn't had been feeling so puny and sickly, yesterday would have been just about the perfect 4th of July. As it was, it was damn good. The little ones had one day to soak up their big brothers and big sister, and they all made the most of it. From the sounds of all the laughter and screaming, everybody had a blast.

My Baby Marine bought a $100 Costco fireworks box, and then took about 2 hours to entertain us with a wonderful show. The neighbor kids took up respectful seating on various curbs, and oooo'd and ahhhh'd.

We'd barbecued earlier, and feasted on steak and hamburgers and the wife finally beat KFC's cole slaw recipe. Her secret: throwing fresh pineapple into the Cuisinart along with the carrots and cabbage. There's other secrets, too, but this is good enough to market commercially. Seriously.

The usual family dynamics applied, but even I shall not share those here. For a change. But the overall tone was Happiness and Light, and I believe we all parted the better for the day.

Today, I find that I actually miss certain people, so I guess that pretty much says it all, right there.

I Think I Was Wrong...

The Goddess Speaks!

Happy 4th OF July...

Other soreheads have mentioned that we aren't Independent, anymore, so I won't bother.

I've got a passel of family coming over in a bit for barbecue and fireworks, and I'm not drinking much anymore, and am about to enter a situation that calls for quantities of whiskey, relatively sober. Ugh. There's really a place for self-medication, you know.

The wife's all agitated at the level of work she has in front of her, and I told her fukkit, they're family...puttem to work. We'll see how that goes.

See? I just got a call. Family is already intruding upon my insular existence. I may update this later, otherwise, see you tomorrow.

Allow Me A Small Prediction...

After tomorrow's festivities are over, Iran becomes fair game. Perhaps the very next day.

Shock & Awe, and you'll be able to walk into the country by stepping on the backs of cruise missiles,they'll be so thick.

Targeted air-drops of Special Forces teams, along with huge drops of weapons and other supplies for pre-staged groups of Iranian dissidents.

I predict that Iran's regular army will turn on the government and the Revolutionary Guards, and seize temporary power until elections can be held. And anything you can hang something from will have a mullah hanging from it.

I predict that our gunships will scour the surface waters free of anything that floats that is not American, and that our sub-chasers will send every sub of theirs to the bottom.

Hello There...

I Forgot...

My drawers paid the price. Good thing I was already in the bathroom. And whew, the stench would have gagged a jungle vulture. But my skin's almost cleared up! I'm also taking this product the wife swears by called 'All Natural Antibiotics', made by 'LifeSource Nutrition'.That's where we get all of our vitamin products. A lot of vitamins, all you know that you took them is that you piss bright yellow.

You take LifeSource products and it feels like someone opened up a nitro-methane valve into your engine. The feeling of 'something working' is palpable. I take the Calcium Citrate, too, and the cramping I was having is...gone. Just started taking it a couple of weeks ago.

I hate to threaten my credibility, here, but Amway vitamins do much the same thing. Really good stuff, just too damned expensive. Plus, you have to deal with some Amway dick. The wife and I did Amway a while back, became dealers, so we could buy the products. Shaklee and Amway dealers are such wide-eyed assholes that it covers up the fact that their products are really damned fantastic.

Too bad their business models are such scams and schemes. Oh well.

Update:

That Shout Stain Remover Spray really kicks ass. Literally.

When I bleated that Rorschach (a beautiful, yellow butterfly, by the way) out into my shorts this morning, I thought they were doomed. I rinsed as good as I could (until I got both disgusted and bored) and then I Shouted the heck out of them and ran them through prewash. Twice. It reduced the overall stain substantially, down to a small, lemony little butterfly, so, in case I ever get into a car accident in this pair, I threw it in on' soak' in bleach and water.

President Bush: Big Fat Cunt?

Or hairless mewling Mole Rat...you decide.

He manages to get up the quaking nerve to commute Libby's sentence, but he doesn't have the nuts to pardon him? What a disappointing, disgusting pussy.

He jails our police and military on trumped up charges, puts handcuffs on our fighting men and women in the field (and on our borders) and then stands with those same people for photo ops with the knife, still dripping with blood from their backs, hidden back under his coat.

Damn, I am going from wildly disliking and disrespecting him, to actively hating the flub-lipped cocksucker.

Why should any person in his administration, or government, for that matter, show any loyalty to this idiot at all?

Sulfurous...

I am not aging gracefully. For a while, now, I have been having a problem with what I thought was just a touch of razor burn, from a combination of shaving too close to my moustache, and the Mach 3 Electric razor I use.

So, yesterday, I shower, and shave just the sides of my face, from the far edge of the moustache out, and in the evening, in the unshaven areas, I break out in painful(ish) redness. I run to the bathroom mirror to check, and my forehead is blotchy, my eyebrows are funky, my upper lip is a wreck, and my chin looks like Elton John's after datenight at the Glory Hole.

It's Rosacea, pure and simple. I've had tiny flare-ups for a couple of years, now, and I told at least three doctors at the VA (including an Optometrist, because it was making my eyes burn) and they all did their usual nothing but put me on meds for other shit that nearly killed me.

I hope our active duty troops and wounded are getting better care than this. I have taken to canceling every appointment they send me, because, quite frankly, my personal treatment has run the gamut from worthless, to outright frightening and dangerous.

So, I did a lot of internet research (again) on Rosacea last night, and long story short, I needed food grade sulfur, and the wife has some, of all things, food grade sulfur. How many of you can say you have that in your house?

So I glubbed a dose down (in orange juice) and now my breath smells like the devil's farts, but I swear, I actually see some fading in the blotched rage that used to be my face.The kids were inquiring after my hideousness, so I told them it was because I ate a booger. Never waste an opportunity to teach, I say. Nat, having partook of the forbidden nose-fruit a time or two, blanched, and made the 'ulp!' face.

Heh.

So there is the current level of the excitement that is my life. Try to contain yourselves.

Happy Monday!

Oh, and if ya'll could pray for Wendy's back, that could only be a good thing. Thanks.

Ahhhh, Sunday...

Not a holy day for me. I think God's commandment refers to Saturday. But the world, mine, anyway, seems to grind to a halt on Sunday, and await the pouncing of Monday like a rabbit crouched under a bush trembles at the approach of the coyote.

It is near 2pm as I tickle the plastic, here, and I have to chuckle at all the things not being said on the news about our latest series of splodey-dopes. Folks, 'Asian' is European for 'Indian or Pakistani'. And I'm betting they weren't Indian.

Hey, that's where that booger went. I wondered. Just sitting there on my A key, waiting to stick back on my finger like some ex-girlfriends I've known. It's a wonder my rug doesn't crunch like I'm walking on Rice Krispies.

I see Vox is getting up into the million hits a year range. Congrats, Vox! Too bad 900,000 of them are from the same eight or ten flying monkeys who blither on and on and manage to turn every comment thread into a treatise on Catholicism.

Hey, very cool. It being 2pm(ish) and the wife and kiddies not yet home, I became somewhat alarmed, and visions of muzzies having captured her church began to dance through my head. So I called her, she picked up, and said she'd call me back and hung up.

Oh Dear Lord, they've got a gun to her head! but no, she called me back a few minutes later and told me the most amazing story: she had watched a man push a woman in a wheelchair by, and the woman had stopped him, and had him come back up to the wife.

It was a gal named Samantha, who has the same syndrome Johnny has. [I put this link up, but I highly recommend you do not follow it unless you're sure. Really sure. And no, I do not want to talk about it.]

Sam held Johnny in her own mangled hands when he was an infant, when we had dinner at her Mom's house. She was walking, then, and attending high school. Now she's married, a college grad in her mid 20's, and her version of the syndrome has taken a wrong turn, and the bones in her legs have gotten out of hand. Hence, the wheelchair.

She is giving a talk to medical students at the university here in a couple of weeks on Apert's, and the wife plans on attending. Maybe we'll take Johnny. Show & Tell.

Gosh, it's nearly 3pm now. My little family came swirling in like a tornado dressed in church clothes, and the wife was highly pisstivitated at them. Seems like they acted like Ubangi house-apes at the store while she was trying to talk with Sam, so to make the punishment fit the crime, I instituted an embargo on further trips with Mom, anywhere, until she decides they are worthy. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If you want the right tone from a bell, you've got to hit it with the proper degree of force, from the correct angle, or all you get is an atonal clank.

Hey, go burn some meat or something, drink a beer, and have a great Sunday.